Pen Pals
by Soul Reaver
Summary: Kinda related to my Guns of October fics, but not really connected to them. Ivy starts a long distance friendship with a lonely soldier in the South American Theater of Operations during the Biohazard.
1. December 2141 January 2142

Pen Pals  
(Dec. 2141-Jan 2142)  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own the Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego franchise, but the alternate universe and Trooper Stanley James Eaker are my creation. The Farm is what ACME detectives call the place where they learn their trades (I made that up).  
  
~ ~ ~ ~  
  
14 December 2141  
  
Dear Ivy,  
  
That postcard you sent out reached the wrong soldier, your's truly. Barry Eden was his name, and they accidentally gave me his mail today. My apologies. He and I worked in the intelligence processing office down the hall from the field agent's wing so you might have seen us a couple times.  
  
I decided to reply because I have to say Barry was wounded severely today somewhere in the jungle. It should've been me, I should've gone on patrol not him. But he decided to take my place because I was down with malaria. Anyway, I've best be going, I have duty.  
  
Sincerely,  
  
Tpr. Stanley Eaker  
US Army, 3rd SFG  
  
~ ~ ~ ~  
  
22 December 2141  
  
Dear Stan,  
  
I do seem to have heard of you before somewhere around ACME. My brother Zack mentioned you once about you helping us nearly stop Carmen from stealing the Bayeux Tapestry. He handed me your part of the report with the huge coffee stain. I also remember sitting next to you all throughout our time at the Farm, you know the quiet kid who'd sit by himself in the cafeteria till I practically dragged you into sitting with other people.  
  
About Barry, it's not your fault. You couldn't have predicted you'd come down with malaria. I actually have had it before, when we were chasing Carmen down the Amazon. Marco said I had a fever for a week and wasn't exactly lucid for three days after that.  
  
Sincerely,  
  
Ivy  
  
P.S. If you're gonna write me again, quit being so formal.  
  
~ ~ ~ ~  
  
A lone soldier wearing faded olive drab fatigues and muddied black boots with a floppy bush hat on his head perked up when he heard his name at mail call, "Eaker!"  
  
"Here!" Eaker shouted.  
  
Eaker picked up the letter and sat upon an empty ammo case to read it. He set his rifle down across his knees and didn't remove his belt kit containing his ammunition and a couple water canteens. After reading the letter he smiled and started to compose one of his own.  
  
31 December 2141,  
  
Dear Ivy,  
  
Your letter arrived three days ago but I was on patrol and didn't have time to respond. Sorry, I'll quit being so formal, it's not like I'm writing the Queen of England. Operations have been increasing in tempo so often it isn't funny. It seems like every time I turn around a patrol's being sent out.  
  
Malaria is no fun, as I've painfully discovered. I hadn't taken my antimalarial's yet when I got bitten. I spent four days in the infirmary until I was released back to my duties. Northern South America isn't that bad a place, it's actually quite beautiful. The rainforest, the parts not infected by the Biohazard, are absolutely splendid in their exotic beauty. So it's a great New Year's Eve spent amongst so much natural beauty, but a terrible one because I know I'm fighting a war amidst a time of celebration. Oh well, duty calls trooper.  
  
Sorry if this paper's a tad muddy, I was writing my reply letter when we had a mortar attack and I hit the deck instantly. Whenever there's any sort of barrage we're trained to find cover and hit the ground. You'll dig with your spoon if it helps because under an artillery barrage all you want to do is dig a hole and hide in it and wait for mom to come get you. Then training takes over and you wait for the inevitable attack. We didn't have any attacks that time around, but sometimes they'll follow barrages with massive assaults by ogres, which are their shock troops, or have a Gollum or two sneak into the compound and strangle someone in their sleep. Anyway, it feels great to have someone to write for once. How on earth did you wind up writing Barry anyway?  
  
Cheers,  
  
Stan  
  
~ ~ ~ ~  
  
"Hey Ivy!" Zack said, as he saw his big sister walk into the house after a workout at the gym, "You got another letter, but weren't you supposed to write Barry Eden?"  
  
"There was a big mixup and Stan got the letter instead. Actually he's a really nice guy." Ivy grinned, "At least that's what his first letter indicates."  
  
"Oh you mean Stan Eaker, from the intelligence building. The kinda wiry guy with short black hair, with the Territorial (Reserve) Army." Zack replied.  
  
"Just give me the letter Zack." Ivy said.  
  
"Sure sis." Zack replied.  
  
Ivy plopped down on the couch, not even changing out of her sweaty workout clothes before she started to read. After she took a shower she got dressed in a pair of jogging pants and a t-shirt and started to write.  
  
4 January 2142  
  
Dear Stan,  
  
Belated Happy New Years! What do you mean you have no one to write? What about your family? Friends?  
  
To answer your question, at HQ we started a program where we volunteer to pick a name of a soldier, sailor, airman, or marine and we start writing them. The Chief really got into it and started calling it Operation Pen Pal. It's so funny to see him walking (no pun intended) around with the four star general's helmet urging us to write our soldiers in the field. Anyway, I hope this letter finds you healthy and in good spirits.  
  
Sincerely,  
  
Ivy  
  
~ ~ ~ ~  
  
"Hey Eaker!" said Trooper Eric 'Cartman' Klemm, so named because of his pudgy frame, shouted, "You got yourself another letter."  
  
"Thanks man, pass it over here." Eaker replied. He was cleaning a 12-gauge pump action shotgun after a day's worth of immediate action drills where the men going out on patrol zeroed their weapons and practiced drills for contacts with enemy forces, setting up ambushes and the like.  
  
As Cartman walked over to where Eaker sat on his cot a skinny little man ran by and grabbed the envelope. "It's from a chick, I can tell by the name and the handwriting! Hey Eek, you got a girlfriend you ain't telling us about."  
  
"Oh shut up Longnose!" Eaker replied with mock annoyance. He referred to Trooper Ryan 'Longnose' Stanford.  
  
"Aw chill out man," the skinny New Yorker with a long nose replied, "It's all good. Personally I'm all for one night stands..."  
  
"Oh shut up, she's just a friend." Eaker replied.  
  
"God Eek, you don't gotta be so sensitive about it." Ryan replied, and handed the letter over.  
  
"Go eat some food you stringy little whelp." Eaker joked back to his buddy, "Lord knows, a man's gotta carbo load before going on patrol."  
  
"Yeah, I might as well, after all I don't have enough blubber to last me for eight months like Cartman does...." Ryan began.  
  
"Stanford!" Cartman shouted and barreled out of the wooden barracks building after the skinny little man.  
  
"Walk for my life!" Ryan shouted.  
  
Reading the letter Eaker grinned slightly as he started to compose his reply on a legal pad. Beside him was a small spiral notebook that he carried around throughout all his time at ACME.  
  
9 January 2142  
  
Dear Ivy,  
  
Well I'm getting geared up for yet another patrol. I just finished an entire day's worth of planning, securing ammunition, immediate action drills and the like. Basically all I did was run around and shoot weapons and practice for whenever we encountered enemy forces. We fight the way we train.  
  
To answer your last questions, my parents died when I was nine and I was raised for six hellish years by a Ms. Lowanda Dumore in Cold River, North Carolina. She was a Southern lady, wealthy, who kept her age well. My physical needs were taken care of my emotional ones weren't though. She always put me down, called me inferior and said I'd never amount to anything. She had a succession of six husbands, all of whom she divorced within a few years. She had the ethics of a shark, I absolutely hated her.  
  
I shouldn't be ranting and raving about my family life, it's in the past. I ought to just live for now and let bygones be bygones. Once this war's over I'll get on with my life. I just want to meet the right girl, get married, have the house with the white picket fence and the two point five kids and go pleasantly to pieces. I have hope that it'll happen for me someday, I know it will. So what's new at ACME?  
  
Cheers,  
  
Stan  
  
P.S. I'll tell you more stories about the six guys in the picture I enclosed. The guy in the center, kneeling down holding the shotgun and wearing an olive drab headband is me. Normal Army units frown on such things, but when you're lead scout you can't have sweat, mosquito repellant, and camouflage paint dripping into your eyes. Hence the head band.  
  
~ ~ ~ ~  
  
"Hey Ivy," Armando said, "You got another letter from your pen pal."  
  
Maria, who was sitting a few feet away in the cafeteria said, "Who's your pen pal?"  
  
"He used to work here. His name's Stan Eaker." Ivy replied.  
  
"Oh you mean that creepy guy from the Farm who'd just sit by himself at lunch and watch people walk by and write stuff in the notebook." Maria replied, "I didn't like him at all, it's like he was stalking people."  
  
"He wasn't that bad, he was just shy." Ivy replied, "He's actually a nice guy, a little clumsy at times, but not bad."  
  
Ivy pocketed Stan's letter, she was gonna read it later on when she was ostensibly typing reports. To tell the truth, she actually looked forward to Stan's letters. She didn't know him all that well in the years they worked at ACME, because they worked in different departments and Stan was a bit of a loner by nature who'd scribble things into his notebook. But it seemed by their first few letters she was getting to know him. Despite his painfully shy and awkward exterior he seemed to be a nice enough guy who's heart was in the right place.  
  
Later Ivy sat at her desk and read the letter. She felt visibly upset, how could someone grow up like that. No wonder Stan was so painfully shy, he had been enduring six years of emotional neglect until he moved to ACME and three more years of being the shy outsider. He had enlisted as a Territorial soldier for some extra money at the minimum enlistment age of sixteen, from what she remembered, shortly after they finished off at the farm. He was a year younger than her nineteen years. She saw the picture of a six man unit which had the words, "My Real Family" written underneath it.  
  
Ivy began to write her reply. Over the past few weeks she had gained a new friend from someone she had previously seen around the building but never actually talked to since the Farm aside from the occasional hello or good morning/afternoon. She wondered why it had to be a major war that got her to know something about a person she saw every single day at work.  
  
~ ~ ~ ~  
  
Stan Eaker chambered a round into his shotgun as he and the five others of his six man patrol disembarked from the SH-57 Chinook cargo skimmer, a hovercraft vehicle with a maximum service ceiling of just over 10000 feet. They were dropped off in the midst of a grassy clearing.  
  
Without having to utter a word, 2nd Lieutenant Frank Rhodes watched as Stan and the other four soldiers under his command formed a perimeter around the landing area. He tapped the wiry eighteen-year -old's shoulder and the six men silently and swiftly disappeared out of the elephant grass into the jungle.  
  
~ ~ ~ ~  
  
To be continued..... 


	2. January 2142 February 2142

January 2142-February 2142  
  
Disclaimer: Same as before. This is the beat and words to Lili Marlene: cut and paste this link: ()  
  
~ ~ ~ ~  
  
Stan Eaker walked back into the barracks, stripping off his wet fatigues and throwing them beside his bunk. He would wash them in the morning. After he'd cleaned his weapon he decided to get some sleep. Ivy had written him again, he could tell by the envelope on his cot. He grinned faintly, crackling a layer of mud and camouflage face paint. He walked into the nearby washroom and silently thanked God for the Army Corps of Engineers as he washed it all away.  
  
Sitting on his cot he put the shotgun he had cleaned and carried for the patrol on his knees. A soldier going out on patrol as lead scout asked him for it and traded his pulse rifle for it. Stan put the lethal tool of war close at hand as the trooper handed him his rifle magazines. He had only fifteen of the one hundred and fifty shells he had carried into the field to give the soldier, however.  
  
"Thanks Stan, I'll find more ammo somewhere." The soldier replied. He was a boy of barely nineteen.  
  
"You're welcome." Stan replied, with a tired grin. He opened the envelope from Ivy and started to read.  
  
14 January 2142,  
  
Dear Stan,  
  
Sorry this one's a little late, I've been busy with cases and paperwork lately. I'm sorry you had to go through everything that you did in your childhood. I had no idea that's why you were so painfully shy. No one should have to go through that kind of treatment.  
  
Well, things at ACME are stepping up. The ACME/OSS Reservation act came into effect and that means that the Office of Strategic Services is training all eligible detectives to be auxiliary field operatives. The training is no problem, the attitudes of some of those guys that train us though really gets on my nerves, thinking that we're just privileged whiz kids. On top of that we had another Biohazard drill where all civilians have to take cover in the shelters, fortified bunkers that are built around the city at strategic points defended by soldiers and policemen designed to shield civilians. It's stifling and kinda scary in there, crowded full of people, I feel like an animal penned up for slaughter whenever we have shelter drills.  
  
Sincerely,  
  
Ivy  
  
~ ~ ~ ~  
  
Ivy Darren thought that the day was never going to end. For one, there was a Biohazard drill that everyone thought was the real thing. An old man fainted in terror inside the shelter and had to be revived. Thankfully she knew a thing or two about field medicine and was able to help the paramedics revive the poor old geezer.  
  
She was about to walk out of her office for the day when she noticed an envelope with Stan's handwriting on it. She picked it up, stuffed it in her jacket pocket and headed home. She boiled water on the stove, intending to make some tea as she sat at the kitchen table and opened the envelope.  
  
15 January 2142  
  
Dear Ivy,  
  
Don't mind about the letter. I was on patrol when it arrived and when I got back at around 0200 (2 o'clock in the morning, military time) I found it there and stayed up another few minutes to read it. It feels great to have someone to write.  
  
You don't need to feel sorry for me about my childhood. I made it through just fine, but thanks for caring. I really appreciated it. It's been a long time since anyone's even thought to do anything like that for me.  
  
I know, shelters are scary. I remember once when we helped lead troops from the 11th Brazilian Light Infantry towards a shelter in a small town on the Amazon. We managed to drive off the attackers, only to find out they had taken over half the shelter with the survivors out of ammunition and cooped up in a few small rooms. Of the four hundred civilians this was bunker was designed to shelter, we rescued only one hundred and fifty. The others were either dead or infected.  
  
Our patrol got trailed when we were out. It turns out that a Gollum tracking unit had been following us through the jungle a day after we inserted. We walked past a hiding spot then doubled back three days later. We lay in wait and saw six Gollums that had been following us. We sprang and ambush and killed them all, but then we wound up being attacked by what had to be a reinforced platoon of enemy troops.  
  
We found ourselves in a running gunfight through the jungle as the sun began to set and night began to set in. We then split up so that the enemy would have a tougher time chasing us. It was the scariest night of my entire life, I remember bumping into zombies in the bush and barely having enough time to shoot them and run away. By the time I reached the rally point I had only fifteen rounds left. We got pulled out and went back to base where we reported the presence of at least an enemy advance element in our sector. I'm glad to be here alive and in one piece.  
  
Cheers,  
  
Stan  
  
~ ~ ~ ~  
  
"Hey Ive, another letter from Stan." Zack replied, "And you're the one who said that this Operation Pen Pal thing was a waste of time?"  
  
"Zack, hand it over." Ivy replied.  
  
Zack handed the letter to Ivy and right when it was in her reach he yanked it away. Ivy chased Zack a short distance then put him in a headlock, a playful one, but a headlock nonetheless, "Ow. Ow. OK Ive, here, sheesh."  
  
"Oh c'mon, I didn't hold you that tight." Ivy replied.  
  
"My neck might disagree." Zack replied as he walked to the living room to watch TV.  
  
19 January 2142  
  
Dear Stan,  
  
My God, that sounds awful. I remember being friends with you at the Farm, but afterward you seemed to drift away. What happened to you there?  
  
Anyway, expect a care package soon. My mom's a good baker and don't be shy about asking for seconds, she just loves to try and fatten us up. "Ivy, you've gotta get those hips wider for when you give me my grandkids."  
  
Jeez, parents are weird. It's like they're expecting me to get married or something right away. I know that's not the case, but its starting to annoy me. Anyway, I've gotta run, I've got an Aikido competition in about a half hour.  
  
Good Cheer,  
  
Ivy  
  
Ivy walked out to her car thinking had it not been for this war she might never have actually known the shy nice guy who worked down the hall named Stanley Eaker.  
  
~ ~ ~ ~  
  
Stan Eaker eagerly grabbed the letter from the home front that his sergeant had been presenting. Sergeant Aaron Wilkes was a Jewish man, a student rabbi, from Chicago, Illinois.  
  
"What's with all the mail you've been getting of late." Wilkes said, with a knowing grin, "From a lady no doubt, a new girlfriend?"  
  
"No sarge, a new friend, I used to work with her back when I was at ACME. We didn't really become friends until we started writing last month." Eaker replied.  
  
"Mazeltov my friend, mazeltov." Wilkes replied, tapping him on the shoulder.  
  
Eaker had just gotten off sentry watch at midday and before he was to take his noon siesta after lunch he sat on his cot, placing his rifle at arm's length and removed his belt kit which he laid on top of his reclining form. He opened Ivy's letter and read it and decided to write a quick reply.  
  
22 January 2142  
  
Dear Ivy,  
  
I'm guessing the fact we worked in different departments and didn't see as much of each other as we did back at the Farm. That's my thought on the matter.  
  
Yet another day gone by; and we're going out on patrol tomorrow. The same six guys, patrolling out in the South American brush to find the enemy, plus a K-9. Since I was a K-9 specialist in the Territorial Army I've been assigned a K-9 partner, a German shepherd named Quasimodo if I'm not mistaken. Victor Hugo never expected his work would extend to military dogs, eh?  
  
We have some fairly eccentric characters in the unit. I know one who's a former member of the Colonial Legion, Arnot Biegard. Every time an officer gives him an order he replies with a brusque, "Oui mon capitaine!" and whenever the officer chastises him and tells him to speak properly he always replies the same, "Oui mon capitaine!" He's a weird fellow, usually he's fairly solitary by nature. He's also one hell of a shot, he'll sneak outside the wire just to go 'hunt to get the old juices flowing' and come back for roll call carrying personal effects of whatever creature he just killed. What kind of guy serves five years garrisoning the most miserable and distant outposts of Terran space, then enlists in the Army and runs its toughest course, Selection, and then goes to the bloodiest theater of war, voluntarily. None other than Arnot Biegard.  
  
Cheers,  
  
Stan  
  
~ ~ ~ ~  
  
Ivy was about to leave work to go to the gym when Tatiana caught up with her and handed her an envelope. Stan had written her again.  
  
"Funny, you didn't used to like this idea." Tatiana replied, "So how is this Stan Eaker fellow?"  
  
"He's a nice guy, he actually used to work with me at the Farm and he used to work down the hall with intelligence." Ivy replied, "He was the nice guy with a bit of a clumsy streak."  
  
"I remember him somewhat." Tatiana replied, "He used to write the morning reports for the intelligence department. Real quiet, shy, timid kid. Rumor had it he was hospitalized for a nervous breakdown....remember a couple years ago when he wasn't at ACME for three months."  
  
"Tatiana, that's just a rumor." Ivy replied.  
  
"Believe what you want, but people said he was a bit crazy." Tatiana replied.  
  
28 January 2142  
  
Dear Stan,  
  
So, might I ask why you were missing for three months a couple years back? I understand it's none of my business, but I'm just curious. Friends tell each other these things if they want to. Again tell me if you want.  
  
This Arnot Biegard fellow sounds pretty bizarre. I watched a documentary on the Colonial Legion. Based on the old French Foreign Legion in all but name, it seems a pretty grim and dismal life. I know a couple ex-military fellows on the counterterrorist team which I'm hoping to join next year who could give this ex-legionnaire a run for his money. He wouldn't be saying "Oui mon capitaine" for long around them if they didn't want him to.  
  
One of them is Maya Sipcowitz, she's from Tel Aviv, Israel. She may be twenty-two years old but she's really smart and tough as anything. She is probably one of the only sparring partners I've had that actually can intimidate me. She could scare your legionnaire easily.  
  
There's an old song that's had some new life breathed into it. Lili Marlene it's called. It was an old German marching song from World War II that was so popular with the British Army that they had a version in English written. It's a soldier's song about a soldier missing his sweetheart. Annette Maria Chavez really makes this song come to life again, she sings it with so much passion. When I heard it on the radio this morning I thought about you. Is there a special lady that you think about under the mosquito nets?  
  
Sincerely,  
  
Ivy  
  
~ ~ ~ ~  
  
Stan Eaker sat down for a while underneath the mosquito net over his cot. He had just been working out on a crude set of weights out behind the barracks. It consisted of a steel bar with a concrete filled serving tin of beans on either end. There was also a punching bag hanging from a short, gnarly tree behind the barracks and he had also run a perimeter around the camp. He had washed off earlier and now sat upon his cot reading Ivy's latest letter and smiled. 


End file.
